


The 73rd Torpedo

by Corrie71



Category: Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-12
Updated: 2013-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-29 04:02:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corrie71/pseuds/Corrie71
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Jim is frozen, Bones befriends Khan as the rest of the crew searches for a missing torpedo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 73rd Torpedo

After Jim was safely encased in the cryotube, like a chilly Snow White, Bones started the research to create the serum to save him. Replicating the serum wasn’t the most challenging part. Figuring out the dosage and the exact components required to bring back Jim, well, that was a horse of a different color. He focused on the issue so heavily that he ignored the Enterprise evacuation protocols. The medbay emptied out until it was just Bones, the defrosted, comatose member of Khan’s crew, 71 remaining cryotubes, and a very frozen Jim Kirk. 

Within an hour, Spock and Uhura walked into his sickbay, dragging an unconscious Khan between them. They dumped him unceremoniously on a biobed and Bones immediately began to run medical sensors over him. “Wow, Spock, Nyota, remind me not to piss you two off. Broken shoulder, phaser burns…”

“What is your plan, Doctor McCoy?” Spock cut in. 

“Jim’s in a cryotube over there. I’ve got one of Khan’s crew in permanent stasis.” Here he waved to an unconscious older woman lying on a biobed across the room. “I had to preserve his brain function.”

“Nyota indicated you need Khan to save…” Bones quickly filled Spock in on the miracle cure in London and the revived tribble. “You know how to to make the serum?” 

“Yes, though making enough and in the right concentration will be tricky. It’ll take time to make enough to revive Jim. At least three days. Now, I haven’t been filled in on the firefight but, as I understand it, Khan here left one hell of a trail of destruction in his wake.”

“Yes, but that could work to our favor.” Uhura cut in. “The Enterprise is about to be docked for repairs but, given all that Khan’s done, we won’t be a priority. Can you make the serum here?”

So, they hid out on the Enterprise. Spock kept the brass at bay by filing report after report of the incident. Uhura brought food and news. And Bones got stuck babysitting Khan again. After regaining consciousness, Khan sat quietly, like a lion at rest, waiting for his opportunity for world domination. As Bones now held his crew hostage, they were able to get him to be fairly compliant.

“My beloved was a doctor too.” Khan said, as Bones fiddled with the blood donation equipment sometime in the afternoon of the second day. “Marcus took his tube.” Bones glanced up at this, saying nothing, waiting for the man to go on. “That’s how he got me to comply.”

“Wait, are you saying that…”

“My beloved, John. He took the tube and hid it. That’s why I did what I did. I’m not saying it was right. But, I think you might understand it a bit better now, Doctor. After all, what wouldn’t you do for him?” Khan nodded at the equipment sucking his blood right out of his veins. Bones swallowed his nausea at the vampire he’d become but, as it was his only chance to save Jim, he kept the machines on, efficiently siphoning out the precious liquid that would give him back his beloved captain.

“He was my first, my best, my only friend.” Khan stared at the floor, seeming lost in his remembrance. “I think you might know what I mean. I searched Marcus’ ship but the tube…” Khan shook his head, unable to go on. 

Bones felt a pang of empathy for the man and said, “I didn’t defrost any of your other buddies. I just used one cryotube and you can have it back as soon as we get Kirk out of it. All 72 are still there.”

“Yes, but there were 74 total, including me and John. John’s tube, concealed in the 73rd torpedo, is still missing.”

“There’s still a missing torpedo out there?” Bones asked, reaching for his comm to contact Spock. 

***

With Khan’s help, Bones created multiple pints of the serum. As frustrating as it was, he had to wait for Khan to regenerate after each two pint blood loss. Even superman have some limits, apparently. This led to Khan eating vast quantities of food and spending his free time chatting away to the only person awake to listen to him: Bones. 

“I didn’t start out as a megalomanic in a cryo tube, you know. I was a detective.”

“A detective?” Bones stared.

“It means I helped the police solve crimes. Do you no longer have them?”

“Crimes or detectives?” Bones asked. “I know what a detective is. I was just….surprised.”

“After Marcus woke me, I used to walk my city, my London. Seeking out the spots that John and I knew. But so much has changed, like a double exposure photograph. I can still make out my city beneath the new. I went to New Scotland Yard. Or where it was in my time. It’s a park now.”

“There was a bombing, years ago. Before I was born. If you were a detective, how did you come to be in the eugenics program?” Bones didn’t want to ask the question but talking seemed to keep Khan, if not relaxed, at least quietly compliant.

“My brother, Mycroft, was a minor official in the British government at the time. When John was diagnosed with terminal cancer, we entered the eugenics program together. That’s how I ended up the head of a people, captain of the ship. John Watson was my doctor.”

“John Watson? You think you’re Sherlock Holmes?” Despite the situation, Bones laughed. “That was a good one, Khan.”

“You’ve heard of me then. John wrote our adventures under a pen name but I wasn’t sure the stories survived.”

“Let me guess, Arthur Conan Doyle.” Bones said dryly. 

“Yes. Precisely.” 

Jim would love this story. His heart squeezed at the thought of him, still frozen, suspended in time. Bones knew he couldn’t think of Jim, that he had to stay focused on the medical task at hand, because if he thought of Jim, lying so still on his table, in that body bag, he’d go mad. 

Unbidden, a memory from their vacation after they saved the world the first time came back to him. For their two week vacation—their first together as a couple— they’d gone to Hawaii, wanting sun and surf and sand, and nothing else but each other. They’d rented a private villa. In his mind’s eye, he saw Jim lazing in a hammock strung between two palm trees on their private beach, not a stitch of clothing on. He had one of his beloved paperbacks open on his chest, sunlight dappling his hair. Bones saw the title on the spine “A Study in Scarlet.” He swallowed as he heard Jim say again. “Bones, you’ll be my Watson.”

“Oh, you just would think of yourself as a genius.” 

“I do.” Khan wrinkled his brow at him and Bones realized that he’d spoken aloud. Khan looked askance at him. “Doctor McCoy, have you slept at all, since the…since…”

“A bit.” Bones said, gruffly, just as Spock entered the medbay.

“How is the development of the serum, Doctor?” Spock asked.

“Slow.” Bones said. “Agonizingly slow.”

“I have some background in chemistry. Can I be of help?” Khan said.

“You? You’re the one who put him there.” 

“Not precisely.” Khan shrugged “And only after he double crossed me.” Bones struggled not to deck him.

“Khan has a wise suggestion, Dr. McCoy.” Spock spoke from behind them. 

“Are you out of your Vulcan mind?” 

“Given the gravity of the situation, is it not logical to use every tool at our disposal?”

“Spock, he’s responsible for Jim…” Bones sucked in a shuddery breath. 

“Only indirectly. You and I both know that the Captain’s reckless tendencies and hero complex are far more to blame.”

“Don’t talk about Jim like that!” Bones snapped, glaring at Spock. 

“I am willing to assist, Doctor. I believe I can help you. You may not believe this but I did like your captain. Even respect him. He is brash and reckless but also brave and smart. We are bonded by the office we share.”

“Fine. You can help.” Bones snapped.

“And what do I get in return?” Khan smiled in that cool, calculating way. Bones sometimes just wanted to drain every last drop of blood from his veins to exsanguinate the bastard. Only the fact that he wasn’t sure if that would actually kill the man stopped him. And also because he still needed him to save Jim.

“What do you want?” Spock asked.

“I want your crew to find my John.”

While Bones continued synthesizing the serum, Spock and Uhura, helped by Carol Marcus, hunted for the remaining tube and torpedo. After he revived Jim, they transferred to a San Francisco hospital and turned Khan over to Starfleet Command. After that, Bones mostly tried to forget about Khan as he watched his blood regenerate the man he loved. And prayed, as he hadn’t prayed in years, for a miracle. 

***

 

On the day Bones brought Jim home from the hospital, he settled him on the couch and asked him if he felt up for a phone call. At Jim’s nod, Bones flipped on the holo-screen across from the couch.

“Khan?” Kirk gaped, glancing back and forth from Bones to the screen.

“Captain.” Khan inclined his head in greeting. “I know a little something about coming back from the dead, Kirk. Has Bones told you who I am?”

“Don’t call him Bones. I call him Bones. You don’t get to call him Bones. And yes, he keeps saying you’re Sherlock Holmes but, I mean, the man is a bit sleep deprived and…” Jim broke off. “Bones, is this some sort of joke? Who put you up to this?” 

“I told you so. Never listens!” Bones threw up his hands. 

Khan smiled at him in cool amusement. “My John is just the same. He’s covering up his relief at your recovery with anger. Doctors can be such irrational creatures. I wished to apologize for…well, for everything. John would wish me to do it. He would say that it was all a bit…not good.” 

“Understatement of the year.” Bones murmured.

“I am grateful to your crew, Captain. They found the remaining tube and neutralized the torpedo. John is unharmed and so I negotiated with your Starfleet. I agreed to be re-frozen. I just wished to apologize before I left.”

“Okay.” Jim said, arms crossed over his chest, glancing from Bones to Khan as though not quite getting the cosmic joke.

“Doctor McCoy, would you give us a moment?” Bones stepped away from the screen but stayed close enough to hear Jim if he called.

“You, like me, wear the mantle of command. You wear it well. I know you’d lay down your life for any in your crew. But your doctor…he’s the one you actually live for, the one who holds your heart. If you can stand some advice, from a very old man, make sure he knows it. I didn’t tell John soon enough. Before my fall. I should have done. I was lucky he forgave me.”

“You actually think you’re Sherlock Holmes?”

“I am Sherlock Holmes. Think of what you wouldn’t do for your Bones. You’d defy death to be with him. I know, I once did much the same. And, thanks to your crew, have done it again. All my best, Captain. Khan out.”

Jim sat and stared blankly at the screen until Bones re-entered the room. 

“Did that just happen? Did I imagine that? Bones, how big a dose of painkillers did you hypo me with?”

Bones crossed his arms over his chest. “I actually like the guy. He reminds me a lot of you.”

“There is just no call to be insulting.”

“I know he did an awful lot of terrible things. I don’t condone what he did. But…he was a pawn too. Marcus was the real bad guy here. You know, I think Khan had a thing with Carol Marcus.”

“Carol? No. No way. Now you’re just screwing with me.” 

Bones shrugged and sat next to him on the couch. Jim immediately shifted to snuggle against his side. “He chatted an awful lot in sickbay. Told me some interesting cases that aren’t in the books.”

“Bones, Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character.” Jim said. 

“Fine, then maybe I you won’t want to hear about the Case of the Cracked Mirror.” It took all of ten seconds before Jim begged to hear the story. So, snuggled close together, Bones told his captain the whole tale.

**Author's Note:**

> So, having just written the McKirk-ing of STID, I started this story to tell what happened to McCoy when Jim was out for those two weeks. But it turned out just too far off from the actual story line so it doesn't fit within the Missing Moments series.
> 
> I’ve obviously fudged the dates a bit here. STID indicates Khan is from the late 1950s to early 1960s. Conan Doyle’s Sherlock is from the 1890s and BBC’s Sherlock is modern day. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy it!


End file.
